Questing Sucks! Book II (48 page)

Still seated, he took a slow breath through his nose, held it a moment, and then let it out through his mouth; on the exhale, he quietly chanted, “
Saelum Nara
Vi
Saan
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Sein
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Suun
.
Saelum
,
Arise
.”

There was a brief flicker, and then he groaned as a hot, searing pain in his right hand forced him to blow on his fingers. It was a clear sign that the spell had backfired. But he was persistent. He would not give up. Before the stinging had even subsided, he repeated the spell, trying again, but this time using his other hand to channel the magic.

The result was the same. Sehn hissed as more scorch marks charred left palm. Now, both of his hands stung. When blowing on them did not ease the pain, he buried them into the sand, which surprisingly had a soothing effect.

Moments later, he lifted them back up and tried a third time. At this point, he was prepared for it to hurt, so when it didn’t, it surprised him. The moment he’d finished chanting the words, he tensed up and waited for the burning pain. But there was none: no flicker, no spark, and no pain. Did this mean the spell had worked?

He looked to his left and then to his right, wondering if by some miracle an awesome summon thing was hiding around here somewhere. Maybe it’d worked after all and it merely hadn’t popped up right in front of him as he’d assumed it would. Unfortunately, the only thing he saw in both directions was the same endless body of red sand extending out forever onwards. But just to be sure, he gazed up at the crimson-colored sky in the hopes of seeing a giant winged demon waiting on his orders. Sadly, there was only more empty space.

Another failure
.

On the fourth, fifth, and sixth attempts, he began to whimper as his already injured hands took even more of a beating from each successively failed attempt. On his eighth, ninth, and tenth effort, he tried pronouncing the words differently, wondering if maybe the problem was in his speech and not in his will. He even tried changing his accent to that of Archmage Bennet’s, but still the spell failed to produce any results. This meant, definitively, that the solution to his problem did
not
reside in speaking like a bitch.

Becoming exhausted, Sehn turned his thoughts once more to what Nero had suggested. It made him nervous. Was he really going to have to do this? Damn that boy for even making him consider it. Few things caused him to cringe the way the idea of delving into his “feelings” did. He knew what it would entail: pain, and lots of it.

Sehn rubbed his chin and tried to come up with an alternative plan. Perhaps if he threatened his own soul, it would obey him and split in half out of fear? No. He shook his head at that idea. It wouldn’t work. It was
his
soul, after all, and it likely would not be so easily torn in two—not even if
he
was the one demanding it.

“What am I supposed to do, then?” he asked himself, speaking aloud.

After mulling it over for several minutes, he came to the unfortunate conclusion that he had no other options aside from the one that Nero had suggested. The only remaining alternative was sitting around and doing nothing, and that one wasn’t going to get him anywhere. And so, even as he trembled at the thought of opening himself up to, well, his own self, he understood that this was now his only choice. Though, in all honesty, he had a feeling it would come to this.

For the sake of the Archmages’ lives
,
this had better be worth it
.

Faced with no better alternatives, Sehn decided not to delay the inevitable. There was just one last thing he needed to do before he began, and it was a way of ensuring that the discomfort he was about to bring himself would not be without purpose.

He began reciting the spell’s words, just as he’d been doing before, but only this time, he spoke them inside his mind and not aloud. The words themselves were meaningless to him. He didn’t know what they did: only what they were
supposed
to do. Slowing his breathing, he repeated them to himself, again and again, reciting them in his head.

Saelum Nara
Vi
Saan
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Sein
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Suun
.
Saelum
,
Arise
!

Nothing happened as he continually repeated the spell—or at least not anything he noticed, at any rate. This was fine, though, because he did not expect anything to happen. He focused only on keeping up the chant. To this end, it did not even matter what the words meant individually or together. All that mattered was that he continued chanting them without any pause or delay. So that was what he did: again and again, one after the next.

Saelum Nara
Vi
Saan
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Sein
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Suun
.
Saelum
,
Arise
!

Minute after minute came and went while the magical words echoed in his mind, time and time again. Before long, an entire hour had passed, all while he sat there on the sand, mutely chanting these unfamiliar words.

If Nero was correct, and this had something to do with his “feelings,” then Sehn wanted to have this spell fresh in his head before he considered opening himself up to his deeper emotions. His hope was that, if the spell was playing in his mind at the same exact time he confronted his feelings, it would finally do what it was supposed to do. Otherwise, he’d go through the pain of bringing up his most unpleasant thoughts and it would all be for nothing—or was that even how it worked? Sehn didn’t know, but it made sense, so he persisted in chanting the spell, faster and faster with each iteration.

As the chanting continued, he found himself beginning to relax, and his muscles beginning to loosen. His body felt lighter, too, which was in contrast to his eyes, which grew heavier. For some reason, control of his thoughts slipped somewhat as he found himself increasingly more relaxed.

Without intending to do so, he began to think of things that angered him. He wondered if this was all some sort of sick joke that the Archmages had concocted to mess with him. It probably was. In fact, the mages were probably all huddled together right now and laughing at him for doing this. Wait, were they? The thought, as irrational as it was, panicked Sehn. What if they were? The idea of it pissed him off and, strangely, the angrier he became, the more he realized he felt sand on his lips. Wait, sand? Why sand? Why on his lips?

Huh
?

Sehn took a sharp, gasping breath, and his eyes popped open. What happened? Where was he? Had he been sleeping? It took him a moment to recall everything: what he’d just been doing, why he was doing it, and where he was. The sudden flaring of his temper must have caused him to rouse as if waking from a slumber—one he hadn’t known he’d entered.

Groggily, he got back up into a sitting position. It seemed he’d been lying down. That could only mean one thing: he’d put himself into a trance-like state—which was good. It was exactly what he’d hoped for. But when had it happened? He couldn’t recall ever having shut his eyes or lying down.

He chided himself for not better controlling his temper, which had completely taken him out of his trance. Still, he was determined to see this through. Whatever he’d been doing, it was exactly what he needed to do. This time, however, he needed to be more careful with what he allowed himself to think. With that in mind, he took slow, soothing breaths and spent another hour doing the exact same thing he’d done during the previous hour: repeating the spell while keeping his mind clear of all else.

Saelum Nara
Vi
Saan
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Sein
.
Saelum Nara
Vi
Suun
.
Saelum
,
Arise
!

It took time, but eventually he worked himself back into his earlier, meditative state—sort of. It was better to say that he
almost
did. The problem was that the moment he had fallen back into the trance, he promptly snapped back out of it after recalling the way Patrick had sucker punched him a few days earlier.

“Everyone saw that happen, too,” Sehn grumbled to himself, not even caring about the drool he felt sliding down his mouth. “And I did not even get to hit him back, either. Foolish Patrick. Wait until I get the chance to…”

Sehn opened his eyes with a start. “Fuck! I did it again!”

The frustration of having screwed up twice in a row made it all the more difficult to do it again a third time. It took Sehn close to an hour and a half before he was able to relax himself to the point he could make any progress. Slowly, he got his temper under control, and even more slowly, he managed to bring himself back into the trance: to a point where he had cleared his head of everything except for those few magical words that were supposed to bring forth his greater summon.

Now that, for the third time, he’d repeated the words enough to enter the trance, he hoped that the spell would continue to play in his mind even while he went on to think of other, more emotional—and painful—things.

He was reasonably certain that, much like an annoying tune stuck in one’s head, the words would continue to repeat as background noise for as long as needed, so that if he found whatever he was supposed to be looking for within himself, the spell would spring into action. The only alternative was to consciously force himself to repeat the words at the same time that he was rummaging through his feelings; it would be like reciting a poem, word for word, while also trying to think of a story from one’s childhood. It was too difficult.

All of this, of course, was one big guess—all of it. There had never been any clear instruction on what steps, exactly, were required to make this work, and the fact that he didn’t know made him frustrated. But he forced himself to ignore the frustration, as it could easily lead to anger, which would then take him out of the trance and force him to start all over.

I think I am ready
, Sehn thought to himself.
So what do I do
?
What am I supposed to think about
?

Merely by raising the question, it occurred to Sehn that he knew the answer—
had
known the answer. It did not even come to him as a surprise that he knew exactly what he was looking for and had known all along. The problem, he now understood, was that he didn’t
want
to know that he knew, because then he would have to go and face these feelings, these…these questions, the likes of which not even his dreams dared to raise.

Sehn hesitated a moment as a bout of uncertainty caused him to reconsider things. Was this really worth it? Did he really
need
the power of this greater summon? Would it not be enough to learn the other powerful spells the Archmages wanted to teach him and leave this one behind?

No
.
If I fail
,
I will embarrass myself
far
,
far worse
.

It was the truth. The only thing more humiliating than delving this deeply within himself would be the shame of failing to cast the spell. No matter how much this would very likely hurt, it was still better than returning to the mages as a worthless failure.

And so, finding his courage, he closed his eyes even more tightly and did what he knew on a deep, instinctual level was required of him. In his mind, he brought up a picture of a person: of Cah’lia. He must have been partially dreaming, because when he saw her, the image of her was far more detailed than his imagination alone would have produced and also not entirely within his control. Had this been a mere daydream, she would not look as she now did.

Her knees were bent, and she was in a fighting position. In her right hand she held her dagger, and in her left, she held the severed head of one of the black-armored soldiers the Hawk had sent to wage war on Patrick’s city of Hahl. She stood in an open desert just as barren as the one Sehn was in, only the sand was the normal color of sand, and the cloudless sky was its typical blue.

She was staring at someone—at him. Somehow, she knew he was there. Something was different about her eyes, though. Something Sehn did not recognize. There was darkness in them: ruthless, unforgiving darkness. It made him uneasy.

“What’s the matter, Sehn?” she asked. “Does this bother you?”

She shook the severed head by the lock of hair it dangled from. Then, with a flick of her wrist, she tossed it on the ground, whereupon it rolled several feet, leaving a bloody red streak in its wake.

The sight of it caused Sehn to feel something strange. It was a shock that traveled through his body: one that was physical, not emotional. It was an actual sensation that was neither painful nor pleasurable. It was a heat that began deep within his chest but soon spread down his arms and eventually seeped its way into his fingertips. Was this from the spell? He wasn’t sure. But he decided to keep going. He needed to see this through to the end.